Transcript Document

Where are all the women?
Jessica Howe
“There is a prevailing opinion among many men that
academics is an entirely cerebral endeavor in which the
social roles of men and women have no influence. This
clearly is not the case.”
Where are all the women?
In Biology, Chemistry
In Medicine, Law, Media, Business
Colhoon
Not in Computer Science
Abelson
The numbers
EECS
CS
AI
grad
faculty
17.5% (140/800)
5.6% (7/125)
18.5% (44/240) 9.1% (4/44)
24.1% (21/87) 5.9% (1/17)
AI Web page (1998)
LCS:
 Faculty
 Researchers
 Graduate
 Undergraduate
LLCSW (2002)
12.2%
29.7%
16.4%
19.1%
The numbers
EECS
 CS
 EE
 EECS Graduate
19.5%
20.3%
19.9%
Dept. Statistics (2003)
This year: ~25% of admitted graduate students
Faculty now at 9 women
Why don’t women choose CS?
Discouraged at an early age
Lack of role models
Overly-intense atmosphere, competitive
Socially solitary work
The “nerd” factor
Other science disciplines are more fitting, welcoming
CS is more suited to men than women?
It’s too hard?
Okay, so there’s not many in
CS, but so what?
Why is this a problem at all?
Possible Scenarios:
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Advertising firms, all Canadian
Authors & news publishers, all frat boys
Basketball teams, all upper-class rich
Computer Scientists, all women
Diverse atmosphere leads to
diverse thinking
Strive towards diversity in gender, race,
economic backgrounds, etc
President, National Academy of Engineering
“Without diversity, we limit the set of life experiences
that are applied, and as a result, we pay in
opportunity cost - a cost in products not built, in
designs not considered, in constraints not
understood, and in processes not invented.”
What does a diverse
atmosphere look like?
Comfort with asking questions: independence
expected, don’t want to “stand out” as
ignorant
To be a healthy environment for all, you must
feel welcome: not exposed or vulnerable
To be near people like you
Comfortable => productive
Fear: Changing the atmosphere
= “dumbing it down”
No, but lowering admissions standards might
- Don’t get these confused!
Atmosphere changes: increase peer support
Many brilliant women are not here because
they find more welcoming places elsewhere
Example:
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Vision ~1/3 women
Systems, um, ~low
Why do I have to help?
Responsibility: community vs. individual
Progress doesn’t happen on its own
We have the ability to change the numbers
It is up to us to do so
You want students and classmates, right?
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Falling numbers of undergrads
Uneven attrition rates
More grads  more professors  more role models
more undergrads  more grads  ….
What do we do?
Spertus, Abelson, study on women in
School of Science, Margolis, Cohoon,
CRW
Broaden discipline stereotypes
Recruit women
Retain women through mentoring and
encouragement
Is it just us?
Through 90’s, 16% CS PhD in US
Why don’t more women just
come here?
That would solve a lot of problems
That’s just like saying “get out of poverty”
Social channeling into gender-appropriate
careers
They just need to do the same thing men do?
They just need to work harder?
The problem goes back deeper than that
But it started earlier than at
the graduate level
Mit undergrads
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~50% women
EECS is still < 20% women
Nationwide
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25% undergrad in EECS
But it started even earlier than
that
So the only way to fix it is to
tutor 6 year olds?
No.
We can influence our surroundings.
But it won’t make a difference
if it really starts that young?
We (of both sexes) serve as role models
We directly influence undergrads
As members of a respected academic
institution we influence other academic
groups
We can recruit and retain at the graduate
level
Impact of a woman president?
Attracting women is being
unfair to men?
Question: is it easier for women to be
admitted? Are women being admitted
with lower standards?
Attracting women is being
unfair to men?
Question: is it easier for women to be
admitted? Are women being admitted
with lower standards?
Grimson: “No two standards for
admission!”
Never had a quota
The idea of special treatment
Unequal evaluation = special treatment
Many men are against special treatment
of any sort
Many women too
Many methods are not special treatment
but acts of convincing women to come
Goal: provide opportunities w/out
undercutting standings in society
Why are (younger) women
staying away from CS?
Positive vs. negative feedback
Computing viewed as a ‘male’ activity
Interest in CS later in life => lack of
experience when entering college
Lack of encouragement, support
Self doubt, acting outside of gender
stereotypes
Many, many, many other reasons
Why are women staying away
from our school, our labs?
High pace and pressure
Atmosphere
Reputation
Few choices of women to work with
Positive vs. negative feedback
Keep it going on
Aggressive recruiting of high school girls
(result: 48% of admitted students female)
Prog.s in place at MIT (RSI, MITES, etc)
WTP
IAP 6.001 prep class
GW6
Polina’s web page
Things other folks have tried
CMU, Unlocking the Clubhouse
Dept. undergraduate statistics
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1995: 7%
2000: 42%
How’d they do that?
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Broad outreach to HS teachers
Broader admissions criteria
Curriculum changes
Official suggestions: LCSW
Double the number of women faculty, staff,
and UROPS in 5 years
Acknowledge and address women’s unequal
child-care burden
Designate one or more faculty ombudspeople
Oversight meetings to review staff and
students
Improve our mentoring system
Hold consciousness-raising events
Summary of questions
Should vs. How
Is the lack of women a problem?
Why do _we_ need to do something about it?
Why are women staying away?
What do we do?
We tried that once, so why will it work now?
There can always be two extremes, but progress
comes from many in the middle
My take on a possibly feisty
discussion: work together!
Sometimes it’s fun to play devil’s
advocate, but less is accomplished
Constructive vs. destructive
And what did I say about this being an
aggressive place?
Bibliography
Barriers in Equality in Academia: Women in Computer Science at MIT; many authors, AI Lab Report, Feb.
1983.
Barriers to Equality: The Power of Subtle Discrimination to Maintain Unequal Opportunity; Mary Rowe, MIT.
web.mit.edu/ombud/ombuds_publications.mit
Must There Be So Few? Including Women in CS; J. McGrath Cohoon, Intl. Conf. On Software Engineering,
2003, pp 668-674.
Unlocking the Clubhouse; Margolis & Fisher, MIT Press, 2001 (I think that’s the year…)
Women Undergraduate Enrollment in EE and CS at MIT; H. Abelson + committee, Jan. 1995.
www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~hal/women-enrollment-comm/final-report.html
Being a Woman Student at MIT or How to Miss the Stumbling Blocks in Graduate Education; Candace L
Sidner, AI Lab Report, June 1979.
Why Are There So Few Women?; Ellen Spertus, AI Lab Tech Report, 1991.
www.ai.mit.edu/people/ellens/Gender/pap/pap.html
Digits of Pi: Barriers and Enablers for Women in Engineering; 2000.
www.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/dept/aeroastro/www/people/widnall/Digits_of_Pi.html
web.mit.edu/admissions/www/undergrad/freshman/faq/summer.html
web.mit.edu/fnl/ women/women.html
www.ai.mit.edu/academics/student-life/women.shtml
www-tech.mit.edu/V123/N3/timeline.3f.html
web.mit.edu/gep/
Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research
www.cra.org/Activities/craw/
LCSW Summary Recommendations [DRAFT] - LCS Report soon to come out.
Departmental Statistics c/o Marilyn Pierce